mcshane's blades

As a kind of history of my own rowing experiences, here are all the
different blades that I have ever rowed or sculled with.

I started rowing when I arrived at Kings College, Cambridge UK, as a
first year undergraduate student in October 1994. A few times I've
subbed for various friends in their crews, these include Corpus
Christi (who I have also coached a few times) and Selwyn. I've also
trialled for Cambridge University Lightweight Rowing Club and hence
rowed with Cambridge blades. I've also rowed (and raced) with Newnham
college blades, which aren't pictured here.

Since my first summer at Cambridge I've rowed every year in the Town Bumps. Since this
involves a large number of crews; more than the town clubs have
equipment for, they tend to borrow of various college clubs. My first
three years I rowed for Cambridge 99's, picking up their blade a few
times, and also using LMBC & Trinity's blades a few times. My next 3
years I rowed for Rob Roy; the first year we used Magdalene blades and
the 3rd year we used Christ's blades in the blade winning 4th
eight.

I've twice been on a week long camp with Kings College, in April 1996
and 1997 to Wurzburg in Germany. The main club we used equipment from
was ARCW - those stripes really make it easy to do slow motion replays
of the catch! In the boathouse were a pair of German painted blades,
from a pair at the club who had in the past competed for Germany,
which we used when pairing sometimes. In October 1999 I was working
in Harlow for a week and went down to London twice to go pairing with
a friend of mine, Martin Harris. He subbed into the last day of our
2000 Town Bumps crew, but for a few years has been rowing for London
Rowing Club and been in the Scotish pair.

I started to learn to scull in the summer of 1995. Kings has an
equipment sharing agreement with Leys School, with whom we share our
boathouse. Since Kings doesn't have much sculling equipment, when
doubling or singling with cleavers I used to use Leys blades. In
Jan/Feb 1997 Kings was in London for a training camp, one of our
coaches, Kieran Jennings, had his single there - he was sculling for
Wales at the time. Sculling along the Putney embankment - very badly
- using Welsh blades must have raised a few eyebrows. Later that year
I left Kings, and actually bought Kieran's boat and a set of his
blades off him - that set were painted in Leander colours, since he
was also a member of Leander. I quickly painted the blades (after the
odd outing in Cambridge) one side purple and one side white - to mark
the transition from college rowing to singling. I later on painted
them the same as Rob Roy blades, but purple instead of maroon. Since
I was a member of Rob Roy I've used their blades quite a lot. My
girlfriend at the time was a member of Tideway Sculling School, so I
used to go down there at weekends and use her boat and club blades.
And finally with more people sculling for Robs, we haven't quite got
enough equipment to go around, so occasionally we have to use a set of
quad sculling blades from St Catharine's as one member of the quad is
also at Catz.